How could developing intrinsic motivation improve student engagement, and how can teachers do it?
Intrinsic motivation, pivotal in developmental psychology, refers to engaging in activities purely for the inherent satisfaction they provide, rather than external rewards.
Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic motivation
In the research paper, 'What is intrinsic motivation? A typology of computational approaches' (Oudeyer and Kaplan, 2007) provide an example of a child completing homework:
"... a child that does [their] homework [thoroughly] might be motivated by avoiding the
There is a limitation to students’ performance when they are motivated by external factors. It would wane sooner rather than later. As much as I believe teachers have a big role to play in finding ways of inspiring their students intrinsically, parents are not left out this role. A combination of efforts would yield the best positive result for all.
Interesting read I must say.
Thank you for your sharing your thoughts – I find the examples provided by the research, quite tricky to understand, but I appreciate the examples provided.
Do you think it is difficult to distinguish the differences between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation?
Scaffolding new learning may be more successful when intrinsic (what has already been learnt) and extrinsic (enrichment that supports additional experience and learning) are balanced together; and thereby experienced through an internal feeling of wellbeing and an external illustration of success. A multisensory integration of knowledge, information and ideas can present a meaningful purpose and motivation towards a proactive interaction with a task. Repetition of what has already been learnt (intrinsic motivation) can build confidence and efficiency. Didactic teaching materials can support further learning and cognitive understanding, and thereby support extrinsic motivation based on the three ‘e’s -E-enthusiasm; E-Exploration and E-Experimentation. The opportunity to make a personal choices related to formatting presentation, and related questions of exploration, can support a balanced relationship within the integration of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
This is a really interesting comment Helena. Thank you. I will revisit your comments once I’ve thought about it, and will respond…
Our school behaviour policy is to give points which then equate to money but we have seen a real lack of intrinsic motivation through this . We have now introduced “raffle ticket” (these could also be post it notes) where if we see a positive behaviour (such as putting their hand up instead of shouting out) we write the behaviour on the back of the raffle ticket and hand it to the child. We are hoping this will increase the intrinsic motivation of our learners.